Ketchikan
Charlie
We
went strolling around town and did some shopping. I wound up buying a mask
carved from whale bone and decorated with baleen and ivory. It had the
silver hand symbol attached which is supposed to mean that it was made by
a Native Alaskan. We also got a brief biography of the artist and a
description of the materials used. We had a 1:00 PM excursion planned for
Saxman Native Village so we headed back to the ship for lunch. On the way
back, we stopped at a tour booth near the ship and inquired about a trip
to Misty Fjords. We were fortunate enough that Taquan Air had room for us
on the 4:00 PM flight so we booked it right there.
After lunch we visited
Saxman Village with the excursion from the ship. It was interesting, gave
some insight into Tlingit history and the Totem Poles were very nice, but
I was a little disappointed. However, after performing some tribal dances
for us, when the Natives asked for volunteers to come dance with them,
Robin was right up there. They dressed her in traditional robes and
headwear, and she danced!
From Saxman we were
dropped off back at the pier and we walked a few blocks to Taquan Air for
the Misty Fjords flightseeing. We boarded a 5 passenger DeHavilland Beaver
float plane and we were off. I got to sit up front again with the pilot.
Misty Fjords is just incredible. If anyone has an opportunity to do this
trip, I highly recommend it. Our pilot landed on a lake and up on the
shore, no more than 50 yards away, we saw a fairly large brown bear eating
a salmon. We assumed he caught it at the nearby creek where we saw other
salmon swimming/jumping upstream. We stayed and watched for a while, and
just took in the serenity of the area. It was a shame we had to go back.
Our pilot took a somewhat longer route back to show us a few areas he
especially liked and we wound up getting an additional 15 minutes in the
air. We arrived back at the ship around 6:00 PM.
Check Our Our
Ketchikan
Shore Excursions